Topos

Word of the Day for Sunday, May 26, 2013

Topos \TOH-pohs, -pos\, noun:

a convention or motif, especially in a literary work; a rhetorical convention.

Each topos carries an implied meaning that is more significant than a precisely observed place could provide
-- Stephen Siddall, Landscape and Literature, 2009

How could the most universally legitimate political ideology of our time fail to become a topos in postwar fiction?
-- Homi K. Bhabha, Nation and Narration, 1990

Topos entered English in the 1930s directly from the Greek word meaning "place." It has always referred to a literary motif.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com